How Thieu Hangs On

Relief and Rehabilitation of War Victims in Indochina: One Year after the Cease-fire Escapees, Senate Judiciary Committee

Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and

US Government Printing Office, $3.50

Current Economic Position and Prospects of the Republic of South Vietnam Development Association

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International

“Not for Public Use”

The Economic Promise of the Republic of Vietnam

Ministry of Finance, Saigon

Letters, Reports and Interviews of Graham Martin, US Ambassador to Vietnam American Report, April 15, 1974; US News and World Report, April 29, 1974

Reproduced in Congressional Record, March 19 and April 2, 1974;

Letters Between Senator Kennedy and Dr. Kissinger, March 13 and 14, 1974

Reproduced in Congressional Record

Indochina Today and US and Indochina

by Indochina Resource Center

Indochina Resource Center, 1322 18th Street, NW, Washington DC

Outside the home of Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh, behind the now near-empty Hotel Continentale, half a dozen motorcycle policemen sprawl across their machines. Mrs. Thanh is an indomitable proponent of the “Third Force” solution to Vietnam’s problems and periodically one of those political prisoners of President Thieu whose existence the State Department blandly denies. She now seems more determined and enthusiastic than ever. “The core of the problem in Vietnam,” she told me, “is the GVN’s suppression of the Third Force.”

That is wishful thinking, but listening to her, and, indeed, to many other Vietnamese and foreigners who talk of a “Third Force” in a Saigon once more free of American uniforms, one is always aware that the earnest plainclothes employees of Nixon and Kissinger, led by Ambassador Graham Martin, are audibly contemptuous of the idea of any political change whatever.

On March 22 the PRG proposed a six-point peace plan. It included: an end to the fighting; the return of all prisoners; guarantees of all democratic liberties; the formation of the National Council of National Conciliation and Concord with participation of the Third Force component; free elections; and a “solution” to the problem of the armed forces. It was immediately rejected by the GVN. On April 14 Thieu declared that “those who pretend to be members of the Third Force [are] traitors and lackeys of North Vietnam.” The GVN then proposed its own four-point peace plan which included the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam. It too was not accepted.

The report of the Senate Refugee Subcommittee is based on a visit made to all four countries of Indochina in the spring of 1973, and on hearings held last August in Washington. It is intended, says the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Kennedy, to show that America’s continuing obligations to Indochina “are less to the governments than to the people—to the millions of war victims and others disadvantaged….”

The World Bank’s report was written after several of its staff visited Saigon in November, 1973. It is supposed to help members of the Bank to determine whether they might make good profits by investing in South Vietnam. The Vietnamese ministry of finance’s short document was written in the fall of 1973 and is a plug for the glorious future of the republic under the rule of President Thieu. So are all of Ambassador Martin’s declarations, threats, and inprecations. US and Indochina is a monthly critical analysis of current US policies; Indochina Today is a collection of the latest articles from the world press which provides invaluable source and reference material. Both are published by what Mr. Martin would call a “remnant” of the peace movement and both are threatened with financial extinction.

In the foreword to his committee’s report Kennedy suggests, perhaps a trifle hopefully, that the January, 1973, cease-fire agreements gave the United States the opportunity “to reorder our priorities in Indochina—to change the character of our …

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